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| Damon |
Enola was dead. Damon couldn't save her. He had no idea his hunting party was in trouble. His pack was thinning. But he had to stay strong; he couldn't let despair grip hold of him again. He was their Alpha, and he would do whatever it took to keep them safe.
He was going to find out who or what did this and he was going to kill it. With his bare hands, he'd tear Enola's killer apart. He was tired of losing people—he was tired of seeing his pack hurt. His pack need him at full strength. Damon needed to shove aside the worry that his injury was affecting him and do what needed to be done. Enola was the last wolf he'd lose.
Damon set his eyes on the burrow up ahead. Tokala was waiting outside, and when he reached it, the Alpha led the way inside.
The pack were waiting, sitting around Ezhno, Lalo, and Lance, who were all being seen to by Bly. Lance begged her to let him help, but she refused.
"Alpha," Lalo said the moment he saw Damon. He tried to get up, but Bly made him stay down.
"Rest," Damon told him, stopping beside Bly. He then watched Jackson and Wilson join Julian. Anger started boiling inside him. Why did that muto have to stick to his mate like a parasite? He scowled at Jackson's friend, who shot a hostile glare back at him.
"W-what...what happened with Enola?" Ezhno asked through his laboured breaths.
Damon did his best to remain composed. "We couldn't do anything to save her," he explained. "But she is no longer suffering."
"We couldn't...do anything," Lalo lamented. "There were so many of them—they came from every direction."
"Who did?" Damon questioned, taking a step closer to where Lalo lay.
Lalo's blue eyes were filled with fear. "Wolf walkers."
Damon's anger turned into rage...but worry accompanied it. There was only one pack he could think of that would want to harm his wolves: Kane. A cold shiver ran down his spine, but he shoved his concern aside. He wouldn't sit by. He wouldn't run. No one else was going to die, and Damon wouldn't let another thing hinder their progress. They were getting to that lab, and if he had to go through Kane to do it, then he would. He was a Prime. He was built for this.
"How many?" he asked Lalo.
Lalo frowned. "I...at least ten. Maybe more. They were so fast."
"I recognized one of them," Ezhno said. "That...dark brown wolf. Gold eyes."
Damon clenched his fist.
"Ellis?" Julian called with trepidation in their voice.
Ezhno nodded.
"Oh...this is bad," Julian shuddered, shaking their head. "I-I knew he wouldn't just let us go. I knew he'd come—they found us!" they exclaimed, standing up. "W-we have to leave!"
Damon went over to them. "Tell me every single thing you know about Kane, Ellis, and that pack," he demanded.
Julian frowned at him. "W-well, I-I don't know where you want me to start. I-I heard them say he's descended from a Crescent Alpha, and that's why he's so fucked up."
Tokala stood beside Damon. "Chief, if this is Kane's pack...there are at least seventy of them. We have to think carefully about what our next move is."
Damon glanced at him. He was right. The last thing they needed right now was for Damon to let his anger consume him. Seventy wolves against his fourteen...plus Sebastien...and him...Wilson. An all-out war would be suicide, but if he could take them out a small group at a time....
"Dad?" Remus asked, tugging on Damon's shirt. "What's going on? They said...Enola turned into a monster."
The Alpha sighed quietly and tried to collect his thoughts. He couldn't ponder battle plans right now. Enola was gone, and his pack were still grieving Alastor. There was a possibility that Kane's wolves already knew where they were staying...but if that were so, why hadn't they attacked?
He looked at Julian's petrified face. "Why didn't they just kill all my wolves? Why only Enola? Why haven't they found us and slaughtered us?"
Julian gulped and shivered. "Kane, he...he does things a certain way. He likes to torment people—torture them. Them killing Enola was a warning. Kane always kills one to let everyone else know that he's coming for them—he's coming for us. He either kills a pack all at once or he takes them out one but one...like some sort of game. I've seen him spend months killing off one wolf a day in larger packs."
Damon growled quietly and moved away from Julian. He paced and pondered, doing his best to remain calm. They couldn't stay in the burrow; they needed somewhere else to rest. But was moving his pack right now the best move? What if that was what Kane was waiting for?
Sebastien was still out there searching the perimeter. He'd wait for the kludde to return...and then it was time to leave.
The Alpha turned to face his pack. "We can't stay here," he told them firmly. "If this really is Kane's pack, we can't risk him knowing that this is where we're staying. We need to find somewhere else to rest and grieve. We'll wait for Sebastien to return, and then we're heading out."
Nobody looked angry at him. They all nodded in agreement...even Wesley, who was sitting at the back of the cave with Dustu.
"Alpha," Brando said, and when Damon looked at him, he continued. "What are we going to do? We can't fight Kane's pack; there's at least seventy of them, right?"
Julian nodded.
"Are we gonna circle back around...find another way to Greykin Valley?" Brando questioned.
Damon shifted his sights to Julian and adorned an expectant expression.
"Uh..." Julian stuttered. "If...Kane has sent wolves out this far, then he isn't going to give up. He won't stop following no matter where we go."
"So the only option is to fight," Tokala said, glancing at Damon.
"Fight?" Wilson scoffed. "Ten to seventy?"
Damon snarled in his direction. "You don't take part in our debates," he scolded. "You're not part of my pack; you don't have a say."
Wilson scowled and stood up—
"He's right, Wilson," Jackson said, gripping Wilson's wrist. "When I wasn't part of the pack, I didn't get a say either. Just...sit down."
With an irritated huff, Wilson slumped back down beside Damon's mate.
Damon wanted to go for his throat so desperately...but he needed to fight the urge. There were far more important things to deal with right now.
"What are we gonna do, Dad?" Remus asked quietly.
The Alpha looked at his son. "We're not going to let them take anything or anyone else from us, Remus."
Although he appeared afraid, Remus nodded. "So...are we gonna hunt them?"
"I need time with my thoughts," Damon answered, setting his eyes on his pack. "I'm sorry that we don't have time to properly grieve, but once we're somewhere safe, we'll mourn our fallen packmates."
Tokala glanced at the pack and then stared at Damon. "We all understand, chief. We're with you, no matter what," he said, assuring him.
Everyone called their words of agreement.
Damon then headed away from where his pack was gathered and sat with his back against the wall. He needed to work out what his next move was. He'd already decided that he wasn't going to flee this time. Kane took away the place he thought his pack could call home; he had Enola killed, and he was planning to kill the rest of them. But Damon wasn't going to let that happen.
He had hundreds of years' worth of ancestral knowledge that he could dig through; his ancestors fought wars, taking on huge packs of lycans, demons, and monsters with numbers as little as five. And if they could do it, then so could he. He was a Greyblood—war was in his blood, and it was time to let that part of him free.
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| Sebastien |
He found something. An aura a kilometre ahead. No...more than one. Sebastien concentrated, covering behind a mound of snow. He sensed twelve auras, all the same. Wolf walkers.
Could they be responsible for Enola's death? He needed to check it out, just in case. He knew how wolf walkers worked, and if the twelve wolves up ahead were a threat, then they would have to be dealt with. He couldn't afford to let anything else slow the mission down. He wanted to get back to Clementine as soon as possible.
Sebastien stretched his wings out and took off. He broke free of the trees and travelled just below the clouds, using them for cover. Following the twelve auras, he soared through the sky and reached their location in a matter of minutes. He descended silently, landed behind an old, abandoned horse carriage, and waited.
The twelve wolves were a hundred feet away. He peered through the cracked wood, eyeing each wolf closely. One was larger than the rest with almost-black fur and yellow eyes. The other eleven stared at him obediently as he spoke, and Sebastien focused on their voices.
"Why can't we just kill them all?" a brown and white wolf asked.
The big, dark wolf replied, "Because we have our orders."
"Do you think the one we killed turned?" a grey wolf mumbled.
"I heard it roar, Gale," the brown and white wolf muttered.
Sebastien scowled. Those wolves were responsible.
But what should he do? They were a threat, and one of his jobs was to make sure that nothing hindered the mission.
He had to kill them.
Twelve wolf walkers against one kludde. The reckless part of him wanted to take the risk, but the smarter side of him knew it was stupid. There was also the fact that killing them all would leave him without answers. He wanted to know why they killed Enola and who gave them the order. The only way he'd get that information would be by capturing one of them.
Sebastien peered through the wood again, his sights shifting from each wolf. If he could capture that big one, then he'd probably be able to get the most information out of him. But how was he going to get their leader away from the others?
"Come on," the dark wolf then said as he stood up. "We're meeting up with the others."
Others? If there were more of them, Sebastien wouldn't stand a chance. He had to act now.
He watched the wolves follow their leader towards the thicker trees. It wasn't snowing, so Sebastien wouldn't have much cover, and once they reached the denser woods, flying wouldn't be an option.
It was now or never.
Sebastien stayed low to the ground and prowled in their direction. Like most wolf walkers, they travelled in a single-file line, which would make it easier for him.
He stretched his wings and propelled himself into the air, flew over to the travelling wolves, and swiftly swooped down and snatched the one at the back of the line. He dug his claws into its neck to keep it from making a sound, and as he lifted it up above the trees, he broke its neck.
The others didn't notice.
Sebastien tossed the corpse as far as he could and then dived down again. He snatched the next wolf, and although no one noticed when he carried it away, one of the wolves reacted when Sebastien broke the second wolf's neck.
The golden-brown-furred wolf immediately turned around and looked up, like she knew exactly where Sebastien was. He must have killed an Epsilon, and the wolf who stared up at him could only be a Gamma.
"Ellis!" the female wolf shouted.
Every wolf saw him, and to his relief, there was nothing they could do from down there. But now that he was made, there wasn't much else he could do, either. He couldn't risk taking on ten of them. But he and the pack needed information.
Sebastien snarled and widened his jaws. He spat a ball of blue flames down at them, and as the fire broke into several smaller projectiles and hit the snow, the wolves started yelping and spreading apart, trying to avoid the spreading flames.
He used their moment of panic and swooped down. With his claws, he grabbed the closest wolf and then raced back above the trees. The brown and white-furred beast writhed, snarled, and struggled in his grip, but it wasn't going anywhere. He'd make sure of that.
Sebastien raced through the sky as fast as he could, and once he was far enough away from the others, he dove down to the ground, dropped the wolf, and smacked its head with his paw before it could try to fight. The wolf fell unconscious, and once it shifted back into its human form, Sebastien picked the naked man up and began heading back towards the burrow.
He had no idea how many others there were or what their reason for killing Enola was, but these wolves were evidently a threat, and he was going to get the answers he needed from this guy, and then he'd do what was necessary in order to keep Damon's pack alive and on course. They'd faced enough setbacks already, and Sebastien wasn't willing to leave Clementine alone in Silverlake any longer than he had to. There could be more and more infected humans gathering up outside the walls with every hour, and the mere thought of it horrified him.
But he had to concentrate. He couldn't give in to his fears. If something did happen in Silverlake, he trusted Lucian and the Venaticus to get Clementine to safety as protocol stated, and he knew Clementine could handle himself...somewhat. No, what he needed to do was focus on the mission. Clementine was fine.
Wasn't he? Sebastien frowned as he flapped his wings and focused on the connection he had with Clementine through his imprint. From what he could tell, his mate was calm; he was probably studying or writing. Either way, he was fine, and Sebastien could let himself relax and focus on the mission.
But that fact could change at any moment, and if Clementine's aura suddenly became panicked and afraid...what was Sebastien going to do all the way out here?
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